Ogier to contest Rallye du Var

Sebastien Ogier is to take part in the final round of the French Rally Championship, Rallye du Var.

The youngster will be at the wheel of a Citroen DS3 R3 for the event as he seeks to build on the promising results secured by the car this season – with four victories already during the year.

Ogier will be one of two drivers to use the car for the event, with Mathieu Arzeno in the sister DS3 R3.

“The itinerary is very changeable,” he said. “We're going to come across all sorts of surfaces and different amounts of grip. The Col de Canadel, for example, has relatively smooth asphalt, but the Collobrières stage is characterised by narrow and bumpy roads with plenty of grip. Meanwhile, the downhill section of Roquebrune is often dirty and slippery. We're obviously in winter now, so rain could play a part as well.”

Ogier has helped with development of the car and said he was looking forward to the chance to drive it in anger on an event.

“The DS3 R3 has a lot of strong points,” he said. “It's got an impressive amount of torque but also a fully automated gearbox that is really easy to use, with the changes taking half the time that they would with a conventional mechanical system. The handling of the car is also very balanced, which makes it easy to adapt itself to wide variety of different driving styles.

“It's a very novel car, as it's a halfway house between the C2 and C4 in terms of technology. The turbo and the paddle shift are reminiscent of the C4 WRC, but the DS3 is still a compact front-wheel drive car like the C2. It's a great combination, which means that the car is a lot of fun to drive.”